Back in the 1970s, Tom was part of a counterculture generation who saw something new in the arthouse films being made in Europe. Tom played an incredibly important role in the history of modern cinema. ‘He said: “Go on, tell them how smug they’ve become”’ You wish to find the beating heart of 70s and 80s film culture you will find in the person of Tom Luddy. In retrospect my 1984 film, Mishima, is the definition of an un-financeable project – yet Tom got it made. He not only programmed films, facilitated movie discoveries and revivals, he also helped films get made. Wherever you went in the film world, Tom’s name opened doors to interesting films and film-makers. Generous to a fault, Tom knew everybody and everybody knew Tom. From his double perch as executive at Coppola’s Zoetrope and founder of the Telluride film festival, Tom was an inspirational force in international and independent film culture. By 1970 European cinema had crashed into American film consciousness and film directors were coming out of film schools. Tom Luddy was the right man at the right time. Paul Schrader (centre) and Luddy (far right) with the Mishima team in Cannes. ‘He was the beating heart of 70s and 80s film culture’ We asked colleagues and friends to identify why Luddy – a man whose name was almost unknown outside the industry – was such a pivotal figure. What made this weird was that he was so unassuming: much more Paul Giamatti than Cilla Black. “He invented networking before there was networking,” writes Errol Morris he had “an almost magical and certainly uncanny gift for connecting people at a soul level,” says Mark Kidel. Yet he was beloved, and influential, because he had such a rare and human relationship with film and its makers. He produced movies by Coppola and Godard, Schroeder and Schrader, Holland and Herzog, and even acted in a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. As a young man, he distributed films by Pasolini and ran the Pacific Film Archive. His career had stretched beyond Telluride. Luddy died last week, at the age of 79, after a few years of ill health. Most of all, it is great fun: a magical, high-altitude house party, where the air is thin enough and the films fine enough to make your nose bleed. Luddy between Werner Herzog and Julie Huntsinger in Telluride, 2019.
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